


Where the Sun Meets the Ocean

by AnchoredTether



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Atlantean AU, Atlantis, Atlantis AU, Exploration, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mer AU, Mer!Lance, Merman Lance, Serious Injuries, Tomb Raider AU, Violence, Whump, all the characters are older and in their 20s, and set in the same kind of timeline as Voltron where it's somewhat in the future, this is like 4 AUs lumped into one crazy adventure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2019-10-26 18:39:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17751329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnchoredTether/pseuds/AnchoredTether
Summary: After years of hard work, Katie Holt finally cracks the dead Atlantean language and figures out the location of the lost city of Atlantis. With a crew of friends and experts, she continues the work her father started when they discover the city and find it exceeds their expectations of abandoned ruins. With the arrival of a hostile organization, an internal conflict, and a deadly secret hidden within the city, Katie's decisions could determine who lives and who dies.And all her choices become infinitely harder when Lance is thrown into the equation.





	1. Descending

Everything was going horribly wrong.

Katie felt a hopelessness in her chest as she began to wonder if everything she worked so hard for was all a terrible mistake. A blind ambition where she never stopped to think about the dangers and consequences, and now her friends were paying the price for her impossible dream. At the rate things were unfolding, they would all die within a fortnight.

She wanted to carry out her late father's legacy. He was an archeologist, an explorer, a discoverer, and he always had his side project and passion of one day discovering the lost city of Atlantis. For the longest time, Katie thought her father was crazy for actually believing he could find a myth, something dressed up as a grand fairy tale and legend. She ridiculed him and was ashamed whenever people learned Samuel Holt - the whacko Atlantis fanatic - was her father. She even changed her name to Pidge Gunderson when she started college to avoid the humiliation. But once she became deeply invested in learning languages, her father's notes on the Atlantean language were an unexpected delight. Although she still had her many doubts about Atlantis itself, she quickly fell in love with the dead language.

It wasn't until Samuel died and Katie found a journal in his study did she start to believe Atlantis could exist. It was a small piece of knowledge hidden in plain sight, a line of Atlantean bound to go unnoticed. It spoke of passing through the trials of the "Isle of Devils" - something which sounds like a line out of a great myth - but Katie connected that the Isle of Devils used to be the name for the island Bermuda.

Atlantis was hidden within the Bermuda Triangle.

After years of thorough research and assembling a team, Katie was determined to test her hypothesis and find the lost city her father so loved. And now that ambition was rapidly falling apart in her idealistic hands. Their submarine crashed after being chased by a massive, violent creature none of them could recognize, and now they were stuck in a maze of caverns after a rockslide that resulted in Shiro losing an arm, Coran breaking his leg, and Matt suffering a severe concussion. Everyone was wounded and morale was even more destitute.

They had survived four days but she wasn't sure how much longer they would last.

"We need to find a way out of here." Keith's tone was borderline impatient. "We're going to run out of rations soon and Hunk's medical supplies will only keep Shiro stable for so long."

"I know, I _know_ …" Katie knew everything Keith told her but she had no idea how to solve the problems at hand. The only ones who were fully functional were her, Keith, and Hunk, although Hunk was badly shaken after having to amputate Shiro's arm. Coran and Shiro couldn't move and Matt had spells of nausea and splitting headaches. Katie knew Shiro would die soon. What they needed was a hospital but that was impossible out in the middle of the Atlantic. Their only hope was to find some source of food to keep them alive, and if they were lucky, some kind of plant that could be used for medicinal purposes. If only her mother were here she would know what kind of coral or seaweed would help their team. If only her technology had a proper signal, she could make contact with the outside world. She looked up at Keith with a desperation in her eyes. "I'm trying everything I can to get us all out of this alive."

He was quiet a moment, his eyes looking away from her. "We should do another scout."

Keith was antsy when he was stressed, and Katie couldn't blame him. She liked to keep her hands busy in times of a crisis so the idea of going on another useless search through the caverns might be a good form of distraction. They ran into so many dead ends that the idea of going back out into the hopeless maze was starting to feel like insanity. She knew nothing was out there but wanted to go anyway. "Sure." She stood up and grabbed her pack. "Let's go."

"Ohhh are you guys scouting?" Hunk asked as he ran up to them. "Can I come? I really need to get my mind off things."

"Hunk, I'm sorry but you need to stay with Shiro and Coran." Katie frowned. "They might need your help."

"Can I come then?" Matt asked.

She sighed. "Matt, you really should stay here too."

"Come on Pidge, moving around a bit would help my head. You know, get the blood flowing."

"A few days ago too much blood was flowing _out_ of your head," she snapped, but let out a defeated sigh. "Fine, you can tag along. But we're probably not going to find anything."

 

* * *

 

After what felt like an hour of hiking through intricate tunnels and climbing up rock faces, Keith froze in his tracks and held out an arm to hold the Holt siblings back. They were all dead silent and then Katie started to hear what tipped Keith off: the sound of footsteps approaching in front of them.

Katie couldn't prepare herself for what rounded the corner. She was only expecting to find ruins of a once great city if she ever did find Atlantis. Skeletons, perhaps. Not people. Not living, breathing people. When the footsteps rounded the corner, she sucked in a breath. 

The man was as tall as Keith, with short brown hair and warm, golden skin, dressed in nothing but a blue and white shendyt that fell to his knees. Bright cyan markings that were too precise to be paint covered his body. He whipped his head towards them, freezing in place momentarily before moving so quickly that Katie couldn't even speak before a spear tip was trust dangerously close to her neck. She at least got between him and Keith, who had just as quickly unsheathed two of his daggers. Her hand hovered anxiously over the ice pick that was strapped to her belt.

"Khas tu yesi!?" the stranger demanded, his eyes narrowed threateningly.

If Katie needed any kind of final confirmation, she recognized his language as Atlantean.

"I think that's your cue," Matt whispered, his hands held up defensively as if the stranger had a gun pointed to his head.

"As esu Katie," she said uncertainly as her eyes continually darted to the sharp points of the spear and of his facial markings. "Mes esaame… uhm… d-drauigi. Mes… nenorime pakyenkti."

The Atlantean's brows lowered further. "Kodel tu cial?"

Katie's heart pounded in her chest. She couldn't tell if it was fear from having a weapon at her neck or the excitement of having a conversation with an actual Atlantean. Her words were slow and no doubt clumsy by his standards but he was understanding her, and she him, and that was enough to make her completely ecstatic. "Mes esame tyrenatojai, mokslinkai. M-mes ghalime… parmatyti jusu mieska…? Vienas es musul myrs, tei negausite medicynikes pagalvos. Prahsome, luums reekia jusu pagalvos."

"Jus sutekiate savos zodi? Jus nelurite nokios zalos?"

"Zinoma. Mes norime byti drauigis."

He still looked hesitant, his eyes continuing to dart to Keith, but there was something deeper in his eyes than mere apprehension of Keith getting violent. It was brief but she saw a glimpse of what she thought was fear. He lowered his spear but jabbed it towards Keith. "Tas zmogus turi pol daut peliu."

"Patikekite, sultinku." Katie deadpanned. She turned to Keith, her hands still raised. "Keith, he wants you to drop your… many weapons."

"Huh? Oh, sure." He released the ones in his hands and started to unsheathe several different daggers, letting them clatter down on the cavern floor but the Atlantean broke his rhythm.

"Wait, you people know English?"

Everyone stared at him with wide eyes. " _You_ know English?" Katie asked, despite the obvious answer.

"You speak Atlantean, I think that's the bigger shock here," he said with a quirked brow.

"He does have a point," Matt quipped, his hands still raised.

She got a better look at him now that his spear was lowered and his body language relaxed. He was a curious mix of primitive culture and something strangely advanced. He wore a bracelet around his left wrist which held a crystal glowing a bright aquamarine. He was barefoot, which led her to believe his home couldn't have been far. His minimal clothing and its style reminded her of Ancient Egypt but his spear was anything but rudimentary - it even appeared to have some kind of power source and was lined with electric circuitry. His cyan markings angled along his cheekbones, striped his biceps, and curved beneath his left pectoral. The tattoos gave him an almost barbaric appearance and yet they were such a bright color on dark skin, a technique that would require more advanced tools and procedures. The fact that he knew both Atlantean and English was another testament of Atlantis being far more advanced than she could have anticipated.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The Atlantean looked hesitant again, as if he were considering running away and deserting them. It was strange, to have him threatening to kill them only seconds ago and now he looked like a startled deer ready to bolt at any moment. He drew in a breath. "…Lance."

It was an oddly modern name for an ancient civilization. "Lance," she said his name as if she needed to confirm his existence or he'd disappear out of thin air. "And this is Keith, and my brother, Matt. _You can put your hands down, idiot_ ," she hissed at Matt and he did so with a sheepish grin.

"Can you lead me to the rest of your team?" Lance asked, and Katie nodded. She could feel Keith's wary stare and knew he was probably leading his mind down the path of every worst-possible-scenario. She was also worried about whether or not they could trust Lance, but in their current situation he was a godsend and she wasn't about to turn away their one chance of survival.  

  

* * *

 

When they returned to the cavern where they had set up camp, Katie told Lance to stay back a moment. Keith ran ahead to check on Shiro, and Hunk stood up as soon as Matt and Katie made their way through.

"Did you guys find anything?"

"Well… actually, someone found us," she replied slowly to let the words sink in.

" _Someone?_ " Coran looked aghast. "An Atlantean?"

"Yeah… he's friendly though, and willing to help. And believe it or not, he knows English." She turned her head over her shoulder and gestured for Lance to come out. "This is Lance." She gestured to each of her other teammates. "And this is Hunk, Coran, and Shiro."

Lance looked at each of them in turn. It was a small group, but if he brought them all to his city it would be like bringing in a crowd. They were all so different looking, which was strange for someone who was used to a very limited genetic makeup. Nearly all his people had warm skin and dark hair and cool colored eyes, save for the royal bloodline which had pearly white hair. The only ones among this team who looked similar aside from the siblings were Keith and Shiro, but even they had their differences.

"I'm guessing the one who needs healing is him," Lance said somberly with his eyes trained on Shiro. "Is that... recent??" he asked in reference to his missing arm.

"Yeah, a collapse in the cave caused a boulder to pin him down." Katie swallowed hard. "Hunk had to saw it off."

He winced, visibly shuddering. "We should take him directly to Allura, but we're going to need some kind of stretcher to carry him back through the tunnels."

"Shouldn't one of us go with him to make sure he doesn't tattle and get more of his friends?" Keith cautioned.

"Hey, have a little faith, Keith," Hunk chided.

"His suspicion is well reasoned," Lance said. "Katie can accompany me."

"Hunk, go with them," Keith ordered more than suggested.

"What?" Hunk asked. "Shouldn't I stay here in case anyone shows up? You and Matt can't defend Shiro by yourselves."

"I'm here too, you know," Coran mumbled, as if he didn't have a broken leg.

"Katie shouldn't go off by herself with someone we don't trust. And you can tell his healer any medical specifics concerning Shiro." He also knew that Hunk had a way with people and if anyone could convince the leader of an undiscovered civilization that they came in peace, it was him. Keith shifted his eyes between each member of their team, landing last on Lance. "Besides, I can handle anyone who shows up."

"Uhhh no no no, you're not _handling_ anyone," Lance panicked. "If anyone shows up just say ' _honor the fifth element'._ Even those of us who don't speak English will know what it means."

"How can I trust that isn't just code for 'I'm an enemy'?" Keith narrowed his eyes.

Lance pursed his lips together. "You can't."

"Sure you can!" Katie butted in with a scowl. "Keith, stop being such a stick." She crossed her arms defiantly. "It'll be fine, everyone will be fine. The sooner we get Shiro healed the sooner we can all start trusting each other."

"That's unlikely," Hunk muttered.

She lifted her head to look at Lance. "How far is…" She was about to say 'your home' but elected to say what she knew to be true even though she had yet to see it. "How far is Atlantis from here?"

He shrugged. "Ten minutes?"

"We've been wandering in circles for days when it was only a ten-minute walk away?" Keith looked peeved.

"Well… it looks like there were multiple cave-ins. This area has changed since I last patrolled."

The cave-ins must have been from when they crashed the submarine and the ensuing havoc of the sea monster. It seemed Lance could still navigate the area, however, so Katie had little need to worry. She was more concerned about meeting his leader and if they would be welcomed as smoothly as Lance had accepted them.

"Let's get going," she started. "If we want to get Shiro to Atlantis before nightfall we should hurry." Even if it was only ten minutes out of the caverns, she reckoned it would take longer to get to the heart of the city, negotiate peacefully with his leaders, and getting Shiro and Coran alike safely transported would be a slow and tedious process.

Hunk nodded and grabbed his gear. Matt tried persuading them to let him come, but Lance said introducing fewer outsiders would be in their favor. He still looked nervous, as if he were expecting his leader to execute him for introducing strangers to Atlantis. It made Katie apprehensive, an uncomfortable knot finding place deep in her stomach.

  

* * *

 

As Lance led the way through the cavern she realized there was no way Shiro or Coran could make it in their current condition. There were expanses where they had to swim and ledges they had to climb. She wondered if it would be too difficult to move them and the healer would have to treat them within the cave. A part of her was deeply grateful there were still people inhabiting Atlantis. She was expecting to find half-destroyed ruins and despite Lance's more tribal appearance they had to be a well-educated culture if he knew both Atlantean and English. How he knew English was still beyond her, but she reckoned she would find her answers soon enough.

"This… is taking way longer… than ten minutes…." Hunk wheezed as he pulled himself up the last ledge. Katie was panting too, wondering how Lance moved through the water like a fish and climbed cliffsides with ease like a panther. She figured Keith could better keep up with him and Shiro for that matter (before he lost his arm).

Lance looked aloof. "Yeah well, it takes ten minutes for me." He headed towards the light and Katie eagerly followed, releasing a soft gasp when she laid her eyes on the sight down below.

Atlantis was something straight out of a fantasy novel or a sci-fi movie. Tall, glittering buildings evoked a sense of ancient Mesoamerican architecture adorned with a very modern technological flair. Bodies of cerulean water were littered everywhere, waterfalls cascading from lips of architecture and raised levels of the city. The fauna was lush with all kinds of tropical greens and vivid colors of exotic flowers. The city was far larger than Katie could imagine, and despite the distance, she could see there were lots of people scattered about the roads.

Before she could spend too long with her jaw hanging wide open, Lance twirled his spear and suddenly it elongated with another spear tip on the other end. He aimed and harpooned one end into the ground below like a grappling hook, a taut wire extending from the ground to the shaft in his hand, and did the same with the other end into the nearby rockface. He grabbed the shaft with both hands of the zipline he just created and turned to Katie and Hunk.

"I think it'll only support one of us at a time. I'll send it back up to you once I reach the bottom." Without any further explanation, he ran and leaped off the ledge, disappearing with a whizzing sound. Katie took a step closer to the edge to see him make it safely down.

"Their technology sure is interesting," Hunk remarked with folded arms. "I'm still stumped on how his spear was able to do that."

"Same," she replied. Lance's spear was able to reel the shaft back up to where they were. She made a face at Hunk, took hold of the spear and drew her feet up as she descended.

"Go discover Atlantis, they said," Hunk mumbled irritably. "It'll be fun, they said. No one said anything about ziplining a hundred feet from the ground!!" When the spear returned to him and he saw Lance and Katie waiting for him expectantly at the bottom, he let out a groan, speaking more to himself than them. "Fine. Fine! I'm coming."

Hunk eventually made it to the bottom, but he screamed the entire way. He was greeted with Katie's grimace and Lance's deadpan.

"Great, now the whole city is alerted." After he retrieved his spear, retracting both ends and transforming it back into the single-tipped weapon, he led the way deeper into Atlantis.

"Allura's going to kill me," he muttered.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation for the Atlantean:
> 
> L: "Who are you?"  
> K: "I am Katie. We are friends. We do not wish to cause harm."  
> L: "Why are you here?"  
> K: "We are researchers, scientists. Is it possible for you to take us to your city? One of us will die if he doesn't receive medical attention. Please, we need your help."  
> L: "You give your word? You mean no harm?"  
> K: "Of course. We want to be your friends."
> 
> L: "That man has too many knives."  
> K: "Believe me, I know."


	2. Dead Languages

As Katie followed the Atlantean stranger her stomach started to fold with a dread she couldn't shake despite her hopeful outlook on the dire situation. Lance seemed nice enough but both he and Keith were right - they couldn't trust him, at least not yet. For all Katie knew, his leader might want her and Hunk beheaded and sacrificed to the gods or murdered simply to keep the lost city hidden and safe from the outside world. Even if Lance meant no harm, he might not have any say in what his leaders ultimately decided. Hunk's worry was even greater than hers, his nervousness increasingly palatable as he walked overly close to her and fidgeted with his hands.

"Lance, how… how did you even find us?" she asked. "Why were you in a series of caves all by yourself?" She wondered if he somehow knew they were there or if it was a strange coincidence - Katie didn't like to believe in coincidences though and her suspicions of Lance and his people were rather high at the moment. She wasn't expecting to find anyone here to begin with, so the fact that there were living Atlanteans and they found her crew when they were lost so far away from the city gave her cause to worry.

"Oh, I was on patrol," he answered casually.

"Patrol? You're the lost city of Atlantis, why do you have a patrol?"

"To make sure we _stay_ the lost city?" he scoffed as if it were obvious.

She opened her mouth to ask _why_ they wanted to stay that way but quickly clamped her jaws shut. The last thing to help increase trust would be to ask what it was they were hiding. Instead she blurted a hasty, "Makes sense."

"How did you come to learn Atlantean anyways?"

She stopped in her tracks a moment, slightly caught off guard by the question. Hunk glanced at her before she took a few quick steps to catch back up to their pace. "I… well, my father studied it. I became fascinated with languages from an early age, and it kind of became a hobby I guess. Even though I always thought my father was… ridiculous, for believing in such a thing as a lost city of Atlantis, I always loved Atlantean the most. It's like trying to solve a puzzle or crack a code because there are no references or guides, you have to figure out the dead language yourself."

"Oh, that's really cool!" Lance lit up with a smile. "How many languages do you know?"

Katie had to count on her fingers before she looked up at him. "Fluent in five, mostly fluent in two, and I can mostly understand an additional three. So ten-ish?"

Lance and Hunk simultaneously let out impressed exclamations.

"I… had no idea you knew _that_ many," Hunk admitted.

"I had the ambitious goal of learning a language on every branch of the language tree, but I'd have to learn an additional ten or so languages to accomplish that." Katie let out a nervous laugh, her face still red from their marvelment. "There's a _lot_ of languages."

"That's incredible!" Lance remarked. "I only know four."

"What??!" Hunk yelped, his expression twisted into disbelief. "I only know _one_ and a little bit of Samoan but that doesn't exactly count!"

"You practically know Latin with all the medical terms you know," Katie offered. She turned to Lance again, curious how he could know so many languages in a lost city. "What are the four languages you know?"

"Atlantean - obviously," he started, counting them off on his fingers, "English - obviously again, Spanish, and Maya."

"Maya?" Her eyes lit up and she let out an excited gasp. "I wonder which dialect of Mayan you and your people know - probably Yucatec or Q'eqchi', but it might even be Chontol or Tzeltal! Man, why didn't I study more Mesoamerican languages? I mean, I didn't know that Atlantis was in the Bermuda triangle until recently, but I bet Atlantean has ties to proto-Mayan linguistics."

"I only understood about half of that," he said with a laugh.

"Same," Hunk admitted.

Katie's head was reeling with all the new discoveries she could learn from Atlantis and her people that she nearly forgot the dread of gaining the approval of Lance's leader until she was striding furiously towards them. She had rich russet-colored skin and the same cyan markings as Lance but what stood out was her long, curly snow-white hair.

"Ar tu nedrisi jut atneysti miesta!" she commanded, and Katie understood this as a warning to not let her and Hunk into the city.

"Allura, isklausyti," Lance started calmly, his free hand held up defensively as he took a few steps forward so he was in between them and his leader.

"Tu zinai tasykles! Ir satai jus jutos sulauzotei!"

They broke into an argument where they spoke so fast Katie couldn't quite keep up. She heard short phrases and caught on to a few words here and there, but otherwise their conversation was a blur. The first time she met Lance he was kind enough to speak slowly for her sake but as the argument got heated both he and Allura were spewing words a mile a minute.

When their anger finally slowed, Katie was able to understand their exchanges.

"Please, Allura… I _know_ I broke the rules, and I will gladly endure whatever kind of punishment you have in mind for me. But they're _different,_ and they need our help."

"They probably just want our _crystals, Lance."_

He let out a small huff of annoyance before taking a step closer to the woman named Allura. "One of them just lost an _arm._ He's going to die if we don't help! Do you want that on your conscious?"

"The rules are set in place to _protect our people-"_

"What does it matter if we protect our people if the price is others dying?" His voice began to lose its bite, his expression turning more sympathetic. "You're the one who always said that life is precious and that the fifth element exists to preserve life. Our creed is to honor the fifth element, so doesn't that mean we should honor life, especially when we have the chance to save it?"

Allura's lips pursed into a thin line, her eyes calculating as she pondered his words. She glanced her crystal blue eyes over his shoulder to look at Katie and Hunk. After a moment she returned her gaze to Lance, her white brows furrowed as she considered the circumstances.

Finally she responded softly, but firmly. "Fine. I will make an exception because she knows our language, and hopefully respect comes along with that. But if they so much as give me suspicion that they will endanger our city, they must go - by _whatever_ means necessary." She paused, allowing it to sink in. "Do you understand?"

Lance had to work really hard to hide his surprised pleasure at her acceptance. While his face remained neutral, it showed in his eyes. He gave her a nod. "I do."

"Now then… show me the way to the rest of their team."

 

* * *

 

It was difficult getting Shiro and Coran out of the caverns with a missing arm and broken leg, but with the help of other Atlanteans they were able to eventually get them into the city. The people quietly stared at the newcomers and Katie couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. Despite their non-threatening curious stares, she had a feeling the white-haired woman was still rather disapproving of their arrival. She could understand the reasoning for such feelings but Katie wanted to be as non-intrusive as possible. 

But she also wanted to explore and learn everything about the city.

She really had to restrain herself.

Matt was healed pretty quickly but Shiro and Coran had to stay in the city's hospice. Hunk stayed there to learn more about the Atlanteans' medical techniques while the Holt siblings worked on getting a signal set up, Keith lurking about like an anxious bodyguard. Katie wanted to go and explore the city but for the moment she was mostly confined to their tent where they set up their equipment in a clearing not far from the hospice. They were close to the center of the city but not quite at the heart where the royal palace and temple resided. They were amazing feats of architecture and Katie so desperately wanted to look inside both, but she had to be patient. She hoped she would get a formal tour of the city at some point but at the very least she could probably find Lance again and convince him to show her around.

In the midst of their fruitless work, Hunk came bursting into the tent, pausing to gasp for breath as he bent over and put his hands on his knees.

"Hunk? What's wrong?!" Katie rushed to his side, assuming a string of horrible scenarios regarding Shiro.

"You've - you've gotta - see this."

Hunk led all of them back to the hospice and Katie wasn't quite sure what she was expecting to find there. Her long-time college friend was easily excited over little things so she was half expecting it to be something of little to no consequence. One time Hunk raved about a new organizational system for his surgical tools for three days straight. She was hoping it wasn't something along those lines.

The strange thing about the hospice was that it didn't feel like any kind of doctor's office. The walls were painted warm colors and glowing cyan crystals were scattered everywhere, giving the space a calm feeling that reminded her of the ocean. Hunk led the way down a hall to Shiro and Coran's room, the space big enough to fit all of them and the Atlantean doctors who tended to them. Coran was sitting upright in his bed and looking lively but Shiro appeared to be unconscious.

"Okay okay, resume what you guys were doing," Hunk announced. Katie couldn't decide what made her mentally facepalm more - the idea of Hunk telling the doctors to pause their surgery so they could see whatever it was, or that the doctors actually went along with it. She knew Hunk was charismatic but this was reaching the boundaries of ridiculous.

Katie was pretty sure they crossed that boundary when she saw one of the doctors press a crystal to Shiro's raw arm stump and the wound began to heal with a soft glow.

She instinctively drew closer, her feet leading her to stand right next to the doctor as she watched him work. He also had tattoos upon his dark skin, and she noticed his markings were faintly glowing in tandem with the crystal as he used it to heal Shiro. She kept moving her eyes from the ghastly mess that was Shiro's shoulder and to the Atlantean doctor as he quietly worked, gently holding the crystal at one spot before inching it to cover another section.

The wound wasn't completely healing, but she could tell that whatever the crystal was doing it was making a drastic improvement. It was still a nasty injury but the crystal was healing the wound to where it would be several days from now if it were to heal on its own.

Katie realized she had come so close observing that the doctor stopped his work to look at her. "Do you mind?"

She held up her hands apologetically and took a step back. "Atsiprasymai."

His brows lowered ever so slightly. "You know Atlantean?"

"A decent amount, yes." Despite the rather magical display of the crystals she still had her worries. "Is Shiro going to be okay, doctor…?"

"Kinkade. I cannot be certain. He's lost a lot of blood and losing a limb has put his body into severe shock." His expression softened, his voice losing its professional tone and turning more sympathetic. "We will do everything we can to save him, and I'll make sure we have doctors monitoring him through the day and night."

"Nuosirdus acyiu," she thanked him with a small dip of her head.

"Shiro and I have the same blood type," Keith piped in, taking a step closer to the group. "We didn't have the means to do it, but do you have equipment here to do blood transfusions?"

"We do," Kinkade answered. "We'll get it set up right away."

 

* * *

 

That evening Katie was so exhausted she felt like she could sleep for days, but her mind was buzzing with all the things that had happened and the things she had learned. She tossed and turned in her bedroll, trying to find a position that would help her sleep but after a fruitless hour she quietly got up and left the tent, taking her notebook with her. 

The city had a few lights to help illuminate the streets, but it was nothing like one of the cities back home. She could see more stars in the night sky than she ever could out in the countryside. She didn't dare take any turns along side roads but instead continued straight towards the edge of the city to prevent herself from getting lost. When she reached the edge of the stone walkway and traveled on well-worn dirt, it wasn't long before it turned into sand and the ocean lapped at her bare feet.

She found herself a nice rock to sit on, her legs dangling over the edge so her feet could be caressed by the ever shifting tidepool. She pulled up the headlamp that was hanging around her neck and secured it around her forehead, turning it on to pool a small spot of yellow light upon her lap. She opened her notebook to the first blank page and started scribbling down everything she could remember from the bits of Atlantean she had heard. Some of the words she could remember she was able to break down and decipher their meaning, but others she was stumped, small clusters of question marks surrounding the unknown words.

Katie was so engrossed in her study that when she heard something breach the surface of the water she screamed. She felt like an idiot as soon as she saw it was a person and not a shark. She felt even more stupid when she felt a blush consuming her face when she realized it was _Lance._

"Wow, I really startled you," he said with mirth in his tone. She could see his grin through the moonlight as he slicked his hair back from his face.

She snarled in frustration. "Why were you _swimming_ at this hour??"

"Ever heard of taking a midnight swim?" He turned away from her and grabbed the front of his shendyt and ringed the water out of it, then turned back to face her and did the same with the back part of his garment. She thought the behavior was odd but then it clicked in Katie's head that he was being _modest_. She felt the heat flush her face with greater intensity. "Besides, I'm part of patrol. The better question is what are _you_ doing out here in the middle of the night?" he asked in a non-accusing manner.

"C-couldn't sleep," she answered simply, the words stumbling out of her mouth.

Lance waded through the shallow water over to where she was, taking a seat next to her as he peered at her notes. "So you decide to do midnight studies instead."

"Actually, you can help me if you want." She pointed to a word in her book. "Draasumas, what does it mean?"

"It means -- _hold up."_ He practically tore the book out of her hands, his eyes darting frantically over the pages.

"Hey!" She pulled it back, trying to smooth out the pages where his hands had touched. "Your hands are still wet!"

"You can _read_ Atlantean?!"

" _What."_

"You can read Atlantean." He pointed to the symbols in her notebook, his expression intense.

"Yeah?? I mean, mostly? Why is that such a shock?"

"Our written language has been dead for thousands of years."

" _What?"_ Katie felt her heart thrum faster within her chest, her mind reeling at the revelation. "But your civilization is so advanced, you _have_ to have a written language-"

"We do, it's just not ancient Atlantean." He pointed to her notebook. "Write out the word for 'fish.'"

She stared at him a moment longer before flipping to a new page, drawing out the Atlantean characters as she knew them for the word. Lance held out his hand for the pen and she gave it to him. Her eyes widened as she saw the word he wrote beneath hers was entirely different, albeit the symbols looked similar.

"I recognized some of the characters were ones we don't use," he explained. "But that's definitely ancient Atlantean that you're reading and writing."

"That's so… _fascinating."_ She stared at the different words as if she would learn the reason why his language was forgotten so long ago if she studied the characters for long enough. Lance's penmanship was somewhat messy but she could tell his symbols were similar enough that anyone else on her team wouldn't notice a difference but it was glaringly obvious to her. She looked over at him. "How did your written language die?"

"Oh gosh that's a long story, let's save it for some other time," he said, complete with a yawn he covered with his hand. "But I'll definitely be asking you questions at some point, doctor Holt."

She smiled warmly at him, looking forward to the next time they could further discuss history and language. "You can call me Pidge."

"Pidge?" he asked with a curious glint to his eyes. "Does that mean something in your language?"

"It's close to _karvelis_ in yours."

"So you're a little bird?"

She gave a slight shrug. "Something like that."

"It's cute, I like it," he decided, inching closer to her to look at her notes. "Alright, so what words did you have questions about, Pidge?"

She flipped back a page, marveling at his curiosity and the way his markings had a faint luminescence to them in the moonlight. It was just enough to highlight the blue in his irises and Katie felt herself staring longer than she should have. " _Mielas_ ," she said without looking down at her notes.

"Beautiful," he answered.

She already knew the word. She just wanted to hear him say it.

 


End file.
